O Christmas Tree

My favorite part of decorating for Christmas is by far the Christmas tree, it just makes my soul smile. It's where all the memories live and where the spirit of Christmas past resides.

I love to decorate the tree and talk to the kids about each and every ornament.

I can remember where each one came from.

I can remember who made what and the trip down memory lane always puts me in the Christmas spirit.

Take a walk with me down that oh so marvelous memory lane.

Topping the Tree.

Noah's grandparents send the kids new Ornaments every year.

They always send them right around Thanksgiving and we open them after the tree is all decorated so that we can add them to the tree. 

This is one of my favorite ornaments, It was Braddocs first Christmas and something about it just makes me a bit giddy inside.

Every year we try to go to Disneyland. We have been pretty good about making it every year, but this year since we had no job for half the year we had to cut our Disneyland trip out of the mix (that was such a hard thing to do, we love Disney).

Noah and I always pick out an ornament for us as a couple.

Of course it usually is Mickey and Minnie.

I love all of the Santa worshipping baby Jesus ornaments that we have collected over the years.

I love that it really portrays the true meaning of Christmas.

One year I had several friends (who know me so well) buy me deer ornaments.

I love that even though we don't live near each other anymore I can remember them every year when I decorate the tree.

Noah's family (on his dads side) is from Ireland (the McGuire clan) so this year, as my Christmas present, his Grandparents sent me this glass spun ornaments made and sent from Ireland. I love everything about it.

Of course our tree HAS to be covered in Alabama ornaments. I think we have about 20+ and we usually get a new one every year to add to it.

Noah's Grandpa (Pop Pop) is fantastic at wood work. 

I have several little things he has carved to go around the house and then a Santa and Mrs Claus to go on the tree. I love them. 

I love the tree all lit up at night.

My favorite thing to do it sit on the couch and just stare at the tree.

This year I doubled the light strands so that the tree would really sparkle.

I love that the tree is in the middle of the room upstairs so I can see it from every room. 

Its the way it should be. 

We get a family ornaments every year at Disneyland too.

Usually it says the year on it but sometimes it doesn't.

I always let the kids pick it out.

Twinkling lights on the tree fill me with glee....

Merry Christmas.

I love seeing the ornaments moved to the bottom of the tree.

I know it will be one of those things I miss the most when they are grown.

I love to get as many pictures as I can of the kids in front of the tree.

I love that no matter where we are upstairs I can usually get a picture of the tree in all of my pictures.

This year the kids picked out their ornaments from us.

Landon picked a Mickey Nutcracker since he and I went to see the Nutcracker Ballet.

Aowyn picked out a Minnie Nutcracker because she wanted to be like Landon.

Tayton picked out this glass Mickey.

The kid is notorious from breaking ornaments, I have a pile every year of ones I need to glue back together, so I'm really hoping this little guy survives.

Braddoc's ornament. 

He has been obsessed with all the different Mickey character movies this year, so this ornament was very fitting for that.

I just loved this ornament, so it had to be mine and Noahs.

I love seeing the random ornaments moved and placed on the same branch with others.

Again I know its something I'm going to miss when they are grown.

This was my babies first Christmas ornament.

It makes me smile every year.

One of Noah's ornaments from his childhood.

When we got married I realized that he had TONS of Noah's Arc ornaments. I guess with a name like Noah you will probably end up with some Noah's Arc things.

Noah's Ornament from the year he joined the military.

Anyone who knows my husband.... I mean really knows him, not the shy, quiet guy personality that he portrays to everyone, knows that Goofy and Noah are kindred spirits, so a football playing Goofy is a must for this husband guy.

I love all the ornaments that the kids make and bring home to me too.

Its so fun and a bit sad to see how much they have grown each year. 

My babies are not babies anymore.

I am sad that its almost the first of the year and the time we take down the decorations.

I think I might just leave the tree up longer then everything else.... sounds like a solid plan to me.

Im linking this post up to Serenity Now's Friday link party.

Family room

We just recently moved across country from Alabama to Las Vegas and decided that since we did not know where we wanted to live exactly or how long we would be here, that we would rent a house. 

I am not in love with the house, but I love the area and the school that we are zoned for is a 9 out of 10, which as a friend of mine says, "Is like finding a unicorn in Vegas." So we went ahead and rented this house. It works for us and is a great space for Braddoc and his sensory troubles. 

I hate renting. I want to redo paint colors, tear down walls, put up new blinds, do bead boarding and chair rails and all the stuff that makes my heart happy... but for now I will have to be happy with just decorating our builder basic rental and dream of the day we own again.

Downstairs we have a giant open space. Its about 20x18 and because its such a beast of a room I decided that I wanted to split it in half and do a family room area and a kids play area. 

I broke one of my cardinal rules of decorating when we moved in and did not wait patiently for the right decor. I just wanted to have it done because the Holidays were coming up (we moved in the middle of October) and so I put whatever we had left over from upstairs, up on the walls in this space. 

I HATED it. 

I never went to down there.

 I ignored how messy it got and took no pride in the space at all.

 It did not make me happy, or make my heart pitter patter when I went down there. 

I actually got to the point where I avoided the space as much as I possibly could. All of the furniture was just haphazardly spaced down there and there really was no "zones" or organization at all. 

The decor that I did put down there had no consistency and it was just plain old BLAH!!

And of course the space is my kids, upstairs is mine (decorated wonderfully) and downstairs is theirs (not decorated wonderfully). I don't like it down there and neither do they, so of course they come hang out upstairs and bring all their toys and messes into the living space.

I realized pretty quickly that something needed to change down there.

 So right after Christmas (the first time we had time) hubby and I moved the furniture around so that we could create two spaces.

A TV/Family room space and a play area.

Once that was done I had to sit down and decide on what I wanted to do to decorate the space. This is of course the funnest part, but it can also be super stressful. I love seeing so many ideas and gathering up different pictures of things I love, in an effort to decide on what I'm really looking for in a space.

It can be hard to make the final decision on what you want in your space.

I wanted to make the space cozy and homey and I NEEDED it to be a place where the kids would want to be. But I also need it to be a space that functions well as a play area.

I started looking through pictures of curtains and color palettes trying to get an idea of what kind of color scheme I wanted in this space. I knew that I wanted some soft white colors as well as natural wood colors because our piano is a medium natural wood stain. Our couch is a light green and so I wanted something that would work with the couch color as well.

I didn't find any curtains that jumped out at me and even though I found color palettes that I liked nothing was really falling into place, so I decided to take a break and clear my head and come back later with a fresh start.

I had to make something for my daughters room so I went and dug through my fabric bucket and gasped when I ran across several yards of duck cloth in Waverly Folk damasks print.

I knew right away that this was the print I wanted to go with and so I sat down and started a board on Pinterest. 

I quickly found so many pictures that pulled my visions of the space together.

(all pictures have the links to the original source)

I fell in love with this picture and most definitely want to use that lamp (thankfully I just got one at Target).

I love the combo of the green and dark blue as well as the white and the dark and light wood tones.

Everything about this picture screams cozy and comfortable to me.

 here

There is a little skinny wall when you hit the bottom of the stairs, right before the room opens up and I have been racking my brain ever seen we moved in, trying to figure out what to do with this space. It is too awkward right there for any furniture so I really have to get creative.

I love this concept to do on the wall. Its not an area where the kids can destroy the pictures that are low down and it perfectly fills the space.

I have several dark blue, white, light blue and wooden frames to put in this area. Yeah for FREE!!!

here

Above our piano is just a big open space and I want to fill it with multiple things and of course Antique anything speaks to my soul so I am going to use as many wood, black, gold and white antique things as I can find to go up in that empty area. 

Here is where the patience is going to have to come into play because I have no idea where I am going to find all the "chippy charm" goodness in Vegas. When we were in Alabama I had my pick on just about every street corner, its definitely going to be more difficult here.

here

Our TV is sitting on an old dresser that I am going to paint white and chip up/distress and then I am going to stain the drawers a dark walnut color. But on either side of the TV is big blank space that needs to be filled so I am going to scour EBay to find some grain sacks like in this picture to put into frames and hang up in those empty spaces. I think I will need two deep on each side and then I'm going to make a big reclaimed wood sign to go above the TV.

here

I am so excited to get to work on this space and show the progress as it happens.

I made the curtains and did them double layered with another navy and white damasks print today and hung them up already. I stole the blue and green pillows and blankets I had stashed around the house and added them down there as well. The space is far from being done but its already so much cozier. I'm ready to go curl up with a good book and hang out down there.

Stay tuned for the progress updates.

Go here to see the rest of my Pinterest board ideas for this room.

We are the Jenkins

In our family we try to encourage our kids to know what kind of people they want to be. We talk to them about different virtues and traits they want to possess in their life and then try to give them examples of how they can be those kind of people.

Our little family gets together every Monday night (or at least once a week, sometimes not on Monday if Noah is working) and we teach a lesson to our children about a wide array of things, always centered around Christian based topics. We call this Family Home Evening (FHE). We are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints (sometimes people refer to us as lds or mormons) and so usually our topics are about something that is centered around our Religion. This past year we have been working on different virtues as part of our FHE, we have talked about being kind, loving, trust worthy, hard working, and different things like that.

This past weekend I went to a Mothering retreat that was put on by a wonderful group called Power of Moms (go here to see the website). I got SOOOOO many great ideas, and so much information on how to be a great mom and hopefully I can share a lot of what I learned and thoughts that I had, on here. One of the things that I heard that really stood out to me was about an idea called a Family Culture. The idea of a Family Culture is to create fun/meaningful traditions in our families. Something they said was, "The feeling in the home is what really matters." There are so many cultures out there like the internet, worldly, and social cultures that want to pull our kids in all different directions, so its important that we have given then a great Family Culture so that they have strong roots. They talked about how children want to feel a part of something, that's often why kids gravitate into not so great social cultural groups. Its our jobs as parents to give them a place where they do belong, where they can say, "WOW!!! This is my family! I am so lucky that I get to be a part of it." I was pretty excited that we already do so many things that are part of a Family Culture but I also realized I could do so much more. I have a lot more I want to say about the idea of Family Culture's, so stay tuned.

(I got to meet one of my mothering heroes at the retreat, Linda Eyre. I heard her speak at a Time out for Women years ago and just fell in love with her and went out and bought a bunch of her books and now my night stand is covered in the Eyres books. I was little bit star stuck and I totally cried when I got to talk to her. This was seriously one of my top life moments.)

One mom stood up during the conference and said that her family has a Family Creed. They set up a few traits that they want to become, in their family and every night at dinner they go around the table and talk about how they were one of those particular traits that day. I absolutely LOVED that idea and that night Noah and I talked about this idea and how we wanted to cater it to our family. We decided that we would sit down with the kids and come up with a list of things that they thought we should be. So Sunday night during our "meeting of the minds" session, (something I learned from Linda and Richard Eyre years ago, that has made a huge impact for good in my marriage and life as a mom! Ill do a post about that soon too) at dinner we asked the kids who they thought that the Jenkins should be. They gave us lots of GREAT ideas, I was very impressed and realized that they really do listen to me when I am talking to them about the kind of people they should be. I was actually getting a bit teary eyed when I was writing down their answers because they were pretty perfect.

This is their list (totally made by them with zero help from Noah and me.)

-Courageous
-Strong
-Thankful
-Honest
-Polite
-Respectful
-Listen to others
-Go to church
-Caring
-Thoughtful
-Don't listen to mean people
-Brave
-Missionary
-Parents
-Help other people
-Don't do bad things
-Don't say mean words

After they came up with their list we helped guide them into combining up some of these things and narrowing down our list to 5 things, that way it was easy to remember. We decided that all of our list could fit into these 5 groups

The Jenkins are....
1. Courageous
2. Respectful
3. Serve others
4. Honest
5. Righteous

So every night at dinner we are now going to talk about how we were a Jenkins that day. We hope that this will help the kids understand the kind of people they want to be and that it will help learn to see how there are opportunities around them everyday for them to be virtuous people.

I am typing this list up so that we can all see it on a regular basis. We also decided that we wanted to point out to the kids at different times during the day when we "Caught them" being a Jenkins, so that they could start to see how often they were being great kids. I think its important to not only teach our kids virtues and noble characteristics but to also show them how we have chances to really be those kinds of people every day. Landon hit a golf ball into our neighbors yard and without me even reminding him to knock on their door instead of jumping the fence, he went to their front door and knock and asked if he could get his ball back. I told him how proud I was of him for being so Respectful and Courageous. I told him that he showed respect to the neighbors by knocking on their door and showed courage by going up to their door and knocking in the first place. He got a big smile on his face and said, "I know mom! That's because I am a Jenkins and Jenkins are Respectful and Courageous." It made my heart swell so big for my sweet boy. It made me really proud at that moment to be a Jenkins and to be his mom, and I could tell that he was proud to be a Jenkins too.

There are opportunities in our life every day to make the right choice, to choose to be a certain kind of person, and I want to make sure that my children go out into the world knowing how to be men and women of virtue. I want them to learn at a young age how important it is to be God Fearing people who always choose the right. I have talked to them for years about Choosing the Right, but I think really our job as parents is to do more then just tell them to Choose the Right, but to teach them daily about HOW to choose the right and to point out opportunities that they have on a daily basis where they have to make the decision to choose the better path. I also think its important for them to see how those experiences can help shape them and help them to see the opportunities even when we are not there to point them out. I am excited about this new little piece of Family Culture that we have decided to implement in our family.

 (the kids wanted to play in the sprinkler so I told them to go get their swim suits on and I asked them to help Aowyn. The boys came back down all ready to go but Aowyn was not with them. I asked them if they helped her and they said no. I went in to check on her and she was headed outside in just some shorts {that she was not in before}, It was the most adorable thing. Apparently she thought girls wore the same type of swimming gear as boys. After I was done laughing I took her upstairs and showed her what girls wear.)

Peace

A few weeks ago, shortly after we put the kids to bed I hear Aowyn coughing but to me it sounded more like a throw up cough then just a cough. Noah went upstairs to check on her and right before he opened the door I heard her soft sweet tiny voice cry out, "Dada!" It broke my heart. He opened the door and she was standing there with throw up all over her face and in her hair. He took her into the bathroom and put her in the bath where she was crying the whole time. I changed out the sheets on her bed and held her downstairs in my arms, with her cuddled up under her towel. I put some oil on her to help her with her cough and she just layed there so soft and sweet. 

We put her to bed in our bed and Noah asked me if I wanted to lay down with her, just then she walked up behind him and said, "Mama?" So of course I couldn't say no to my sweet girl. I layed in bed with her and she grabbed my hand and held it in hers, she laced her tiny little fingers in mine and I rubbed her hand. She rested her head on mine and fell asleep. After about 5 minutes she sat up and leaned over to me, I grabbed the bowl and my poor baby threw up again. After she was done Noah asked her if she wanted a blessing and she sweetly said, "Yes!" in her adorable baby girl voice. So he gave her a blessing and when he was done, she looked at him, pointed at me and said, "Mama". I have been hurting a lot still since my surgery and she has been trying so hard to take care of me. So Noah gave me a blessing too, which was much needed. He went back over to her to talk to her and she pointed at him and said, "Dada!" And put both of her hands on his head. It was so sweet!

After that she rolled over and reached behind her to grab my hand. I put my hand over her little body and felt her soft sweet breathing making my hand rise up and down. She wrapped her hand in mine again and this time she was rubbing my hand, I nestled my face into her sweet smelling hair and she rubbed her tiny little foot along my leg. It was one of the most beautiful times Ive had as a mom. I really just was enjoying laying there with her, marveling at how I got so lucky to have such a sweet little girl. I felt so bad for her and how sick she was feeling but so blessed at the same time to get to have such a sweet moment with my daughter. It was something that makes motherhood so very special, sometimes we just need to stop and take in the beauty of what is right there in front of us. Such a simple beautiful moment that I am ashamed to say I would have missed had I thought of checking facebook while I lay there in bed with her. 

After a few minutes of just watching her drift off to sleep, I too closed my eyes and just took in how beautiful I felt. I just felt so much peace and thanked Heavenly Father that I was able to be there in that moment, that I was able to be a mom, and that I was able to be there in that bed at that moment creating a beautiful memory with my sweet girl. I always want my children to know I am there for them, I never want them to doubt that or to think that anything is more important to me then they are. I never want them to ever feel anything but love and safety when they are in my arms. I want them to feel at peace and drift off to sleep knowing that nothing in the world can harm them. There are so many things in this world that can distract us and our children from the things that are right and special and sacred. I dont want to miss one moment of there delicatness. I dont want to miss any of the small, sweet details of their lives, they are my babies and I am their mother and those are the most important things in my life (aside from my sweet husband and the gospel of Jesus Christ, its all part of the same thing for me). 

So much can be done and learned when we silence the world and just enjoy the beauty that is right there in front of us. The peace and the comfort and the beauty that is part of Gods natural plan for us. The rest of it falls by the wayside, it doesn't really matter when we just stop and look at the great miracles of life that are right there in front of us, these sacred little miracles of life that are put in our care as parents. They don't need much from us, they just need our love, our support, our safety and our presence.

This little lady is so full so sass and spunk. I just love it!! She is perfect. Im not sure where she got the kissy faces from (probably because we kiss a ton) but now she tells me to do it all the time, it cracks me up. I don't know what I would do with out her and her sweet little spirit, she keeps me grounded and teaches me so much about love and patience, she is going to be a great mommy one day and Im so excited to get to be a part of her life.

Treasures on earth

Ive been thinking a lot about my life in general. Ive been thinking about what I think the most important things in my life are and about who I really want to be. How do I measure my own success in life and how does that lead me to act on a daily basis? (thats for another post all together.) Something that really has been a no brainer to me is that my Family, my husband and my children are really the most important things in my life. They are my treasures.

 President Hinckley said: 

"God bless you, dear friends. Do not trade your birthright as a mother for some bauble of passing value. Let your first interest be in your home. The baby you hold in your arms will grow quickly as the sunrise and the sunset of the rushing days. I hope that when that occurs you will not be led to exclaim as did King Lear, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” (King Lear, I, iv, 312). Rather, I hope that you will have every reason to be proud concerning your children, to have love for them, to have faith in them, to see them grow in righteousness and virtue before the Lord, to see them become useful and productive members of society. If with all you have done there is an occasional failure, you can still say, “At least I did the very best of which I was capable. I tried as hard as I knew how. I let nothing stand in the way of my role as a mother.” Failures will be few under such circumstances." 

My children are my most priceless treasure. No amount of wealth or gold or success in my life will ever compare to how much my success as their mother means to me. The love that they have for me is endless, the only person that can change that, is me. I never want to lose their love, I always want to be worthy of it, to deserve every single bit of love they have for me. Children forgive so easily and love so unconditionally, I hope that I always deserve their forgiveness and their unconditional love.

Matthew 6:19, 20 says  19 ¶Lay not up for yourselves ^atreasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves ^bbreak through and steal:

 20 But lay up for yourselves ^atreasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor ^bsteal:

These are my treasures that neither moth nor rust can corrupt. The world will try its hardest to corrupt them, but If I take care of them and treat them with love and kindness, if I nurture them and protect them and do everything to treasure them then I will have them as my children forever. 

It pains me too look at the world and to see so many moms treasuring those things of worldly value, I want to hold them and plead with them to look at their precious children, who are right in front of them, those precious children who are their life and greatest reward. I wish they could see that their greastest success lies with their children. I ache to see them missing out on so much happiness simply because they can not see the great gift that has been given to them. The world tells us to look to it for validation, gratification and happiness. The Lord knows better then this and tells us to look to our children, to look into our homes and at our most sacred relationships. This is where the treasures lie, this is where the true validation, gratification and happiness can be found.

I am so honored to be called a mother, to have 4 beautiful little spirits looking to me to hold their hand and guide them through life.

Lead me 

Guide me

Walk beside me

Help me find the way

Teach me all that I must know, to live with him (Heavenly Father) someday

Such a beautiful and simple message. In that short little chorus to one of my childhood hymns is laid all the knowledge and power that the world has to offer.  Lead our children by our example, Guide our children by helping them navigate their way on the path of righteousness through a world of sin, and Walk beside them, holding their hand and taking each step along the way with them. It is our sacred and noble jobs as mothers to show them the way back to their Heavenly home. These little fresh from God spirits, are our jewels that God has given us in this life. And like any jewel we must keep is close to us, treasure its great value and protect it. 

Family pictures from 2012

These pictures were taken by my WONDERFULLY talented friend Mary Anne.